Post Office closure plans under fire

YORK: The city’s MP has accused Post Office bosses of ignoring public opinion after a controversial decision to close the historic Lendal office in the city. There are similar proposals in Scarborough and Harrogate.

POST OFFICE bosses have been accused of ignoring public opinion after a controversial decision to close a historic York Post Office, which thousands signed a petition to save.

York Central MP Rachael Maskell will meet Small Business Minister Kelly Tolhurst for urgent talks today after it was announced that one of the few surviving Victorian Post Offices at 22 Lendal will shut on April 3 and be replaced by WHSmith counters on Coney Street.

Ms Maskell lamented what she called “yet another example of a public body selling off part of our incredible city for a quick financial fix”.

More than 3,000 people signed a petition, with veteran customer Harold Wood, 95, who helped protect the building from the Luftwaffe during the Second World War as a member of the Home Guard, also stepping in.

The MP said the new franchised counters will be inaccessible to many people with restricted mobility, as there is no parking close by.

And she said there would be concern that “this magnificent building” would either “join the ranks of other boarded-up shops along Coney Street or become yet another bar”.

The decision came as Labour councillors in Scarborough condemned a plan to move the Post Office from Aberdeen Walk into WHSmith on Westborough.

Scarborough councillor David Billing said relocating to WHSmith would make a public service “more vulnerable to the vagaries of the market and its owners” and feared its new home was “just not big enough, particularly for people with disabilities”.

The latest developments follow the decision to replace the Crown Post Office on Cambridge Road, Harrogate, which has disabled access, nearby parking and taxi ranks, with a counter in WHSmith by May.

Earlier this month Harrogate MP Andrew Jones described the consultation as a sham, after it was revealed that WHSmith had advertised new jobs and applied for permission to erect Post Office signs in their Victoria shopping centre store, despite Post Office claims that no final decision had been made.

The Post Office says extra opening hours will be available at the new branches in York and Scarborough.

Network and sales director Roger Gale said the change would help the branches remain commercially viable into the future, and they were making sure “we take the right action to sustain services for years to come”.